The present invention relates to a process and device particularly for accelerating the drying or maintenance of cement mixes, such as prestressed and non-prestressed concrete components.
As is known, the curing or drying, i.e. the setting and hardening, of cement mixes or components, for example components cast on a casting bed, which can have a length of even 120 m and more, is performed and accelerated by heating with a conventional system which consists in causing a heating fluid, for example water or oil, to flow in a pipe arranged below the casting plane of the bed; said fluid yields heat by conduction and convection to the overlying component. The refinement of applying on the curing component one or more sheets of plastic material, in order to contain the heat and humidity of the concrete, is also already known.
Although this heating method is satisfactory when dealing with components having a height (thickness) of less than 40 cm, it yields insufficient results for thicker components. The temperatures, which are necessarily rather low in order to avoid burning the cement mix on the surface, and the presence of internal cavities for lightening the components in fact create hindrances to the conduction of heat, generating non-uniformities in the distribution of the temperatures and thus in the mechanical characteristics of the component.
Steam heating hoods are already used, but the are expensive and difficult to place and remove and most of all cause energy dispersions.